Good dungeon synth names sound like a place you could find on an old map: a tower, a keep, a hollow or a far-off realm. Dungeon synth is music for imagined places, played on synths and keyboards and often recorded alone at home, and the names do half the work of setting the scene. This dungeon synth name generator has names for projects and albums in four styles, from Throne of Mists to Lantern Vale.
Eight good dungeon synth names
All eight came from the generator, one project and one album from each style:
- Umbral Keep: a dark stronghold, the classic dungeon synth name.
- The Book of Grey Runes: album titles as tomes, a habit of the dark style.
- Thrushwood: a forest named after a bird, for nature and fantasy.
- Of Owls and Mists: two things joined by "of", like an old chapter heading.
- Thimble Hollow: small, warm and safe, the comfy synth way.
- Snowed in at the Old Mill: a cosy album you can picture the cover of.
- The Cosmic Hermit: a lonely figure among the stars, for cosmic synth.
- Hymns for the Sleeping Satellite: a cosmic album with a hint of the sacred.
Where dungeon synth comes from
The sound grew out of the 1990s black metal scene, when musicians made atmospheric keyboard side projects between metal albums. Mortiis, who had played bass in Emperor, is the name most often cited from those early years, and Summoning from Austria built their atmosphere around Tolkien.
The name came much later: "dungeon synth" was coined around 2011 on Andy Werth's blog of the same name, which gave a scattered scene a label to gather under. Since then it has grown into a large community, mostly releasing on Bandcamp and on cassette, with projects like Old Tower and Erang among its best known.
Four styles of name
- Dark and medieval: keeps, crypts and fortresses. Gravenhelm, Sunless Throne, Ashen Vigil. The classic sound.
- Nature and fantasy: forests, glades and old magic. Lichenwood, Moonveil Glade, Elderglen.
- Cosy (comfy synth): the warmer, gentler offshoot, all hearths and hollows. Hearthgrove, Candlewick Keep, Mellowbrook.
- Cosmic and space synth: the night sky instead of the castle. Starhallow, Comet Chapel, The Star Cartographer.
Cosmic synth is a neighbouring scene that shares dungeon synth's home-recorded, lo-fi spirit and many of its listeners. It looks back to the long, spacey synth music of the 1970s Berlin School, such as Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze, rather than to 80s neon, which is why it sits here and not with synthwave.
Naming projects and albums
- A place. Many projects are named as if they were a location: a tower, a keep, a realm. The music then becomes a visit there. Old Tower is a good example.
- A borrowed world. Tolkien is everywhere in the genre: the German project Thangorodrim takes its name from Morgoth's mountains. If you borrow, borrow deep cuts.
- An invented word. A single strange name (Mortiis, Erang) leaves the world entirely up to the music.
- Albums as chapters. Album titles often read like books, seasons or episodes in the same imagined world, so a project and its albums can share a map. Choose Album title for titles like The Book of Lost Candles, Midwinter in the Kingfisher Lake or A Rainy Year at Bramble Cottage.
Before you release
- Search Bandcamp, Discogs and the streaming services for the name. The scene is large and full of keeps and towers, so a quick search saves a rename later.
- Check it's searchable. A name that's also a common phrase is hard for listeners to find; adding a word or an unusual spelling helps.
- Think about the cover. Dungeon synth is a visual genre (old maps, woodcuts, pixel art). A name that suggests an image makes the artwork easier.
I write dungeon synth most days, and I've put everything I've learned into a free eight-step dungeon synth path on my music site: what it is, the free synths that get the sound, how I write it, and how to name and release your own project.
For colder, emptier music, try the Dark Ambient Name Generator. For neon and night drives, there's the Synthwave Name Generator.
For more genres, see all the music genre name generators.